andrew.pilsch.com

I’ve been reading a lot of Situationists recently and one of their big things is the idea of the “dérive”, which is basically a theoretical construction that justifies purposeless wandering in an urban space. As a digression, I also really love that the Situationists claim to want to valorize leisure time (being a graduate student, I’m all for this). Anyway, yesterday I was bored and it was lovely outside, so I decided to see if the Situationists could put their money where their mouths were.

I set out from home with a vague plan to wander around downtown State College. I ended up wandering down Calder Ave. for something like 15 blocks. It was really fun. At one point, I got lost in a parking garage. I found an abandoned building that was pretty groovy. Also, there was some generic sports bar on that street that has the sign, “absolutely no stick ball,” painted on the outside. I can’t decide if that’s for serious or kitschy (which is probably a sign (bah dum bum cha) that we’ve moved beyond the postmodern as a civilization). Anyway, I’ve also never noticed how many highrise apartment blocks there are in this town. It’s sort of like a kitschy, quant, downhome housing project.

The exciting thing about this whole experience, though, is that in the process of de-vectorizing the urban, I discovered that critical theory isn’t an impoverished excuse for intellectual labor. Some of these people are actually talking about things that work. I saw things I may not have ever known and noticed things I may not have seen otherwise. As Shawna told me on the phone yesterday, “so it’s not just a class title: you really can put theory into practice.” Exciting.